Within one of the broken fossil eggs from Argentina, researchers found eight tiny, sausage-shaped structures about an inch (two to three centimeters) long and nearly a half-inch (just over a centimeter) wide.

The strange structures appear to be fossilized insect cocoons that are similar in size and shape to cocoons belonging to a number of modern wasp species.

Bugs Key to Cleaning Dino Nests

The study authors suggest that the ancient egg was somehow cracked open before it hatched. Scavengers such as crickets might have fed on the yolk, and spiders later dined on the scavengers.

The finding could be the first evidence of invertebrates such as crickets scavenging on dinosaur eggs, since it's "the first time that [wasp] cocoons are associated with a dinosaur egg," said study co-author Jorge Genise, an entomologist at the Argentine Museum of Natural Sciences.

Although the bugs profited off the death of this particular egg, the critters were probably key in keeping titanosaur nests clean overall, added co-author Laura Sarzetti, another entomologist at the museum.